Page:Austen Sanditon and other miscellanea.djvu/47

hope to be more endebted to her sense of Justice than he had allowed them to be to his, and those Members of the Denham Family, whom her second Husband had hoped to make a good Bargain for. By all of these, or by Branches of them, she had no doubt been long, and still continued to be, well attacked; and of these three divisions, Mr. Parker did not hesitate to say that Mr. Hollis’s Kindred were the least in favour and Sir Harry Denham’s the most. The former, he believed, had done themselves irremediable harm by expressions of very unwise and unjustifiable resentment at the time of Mr. Hollis’s death; the Latter, to the advantage of being the remnant of a Connection which she certainly valued, joined those of having been known to her from their Childhood, and of being always at hand to preserve their interest by reasonable attention. Sir Edward, the present Baronet, nephew to Sir Harry, resided constantly at Denham Park; and Mr. Parker had little doubt, that he and his Sister Miss Denham, who lived with him, would be principally remembered in her Will. He sincerely hoped it. Miss Denham had a very small provision, and her Brother was a poor Man for his rank in Society. ‘He is a warm friend to Sanditon,’ said Mr. Parker, ‘and his hand would be as liberal as his heart, had he the Power. He would be a noble Coadjutor! As it is, he does what he can and is running up a tasteful little Cottage Ornée, on a strip of Waste Ground Lady Denham has granted him, which I have no doubt we shall have many a Candidate for, before the end even of this Season.’ Till within the last twelvemonth, Mr. Parker had considered Sir Edward as standing without a rival, as having the fairest chance of succeeding to the greater part of all that she had to give; but there was now another person’s claims to be taken into the account, those of the young female relation, whom Lady Denham had been induced to receive into her Family.